Scientists worldwide are warning of the looming extinction of thousands of species, from tigers and polar bears to rare flowers, birds, and insects. If the destruction continues, half of all species of plants and animals could disappear by the end of the century--and with them earth's life-support ecosystems that provide our food, water, medicine, and natural defenses against climate change.

Now Caroline Fraser offers the first definitive account of a visionary campaign to confront this crisis: rewilding. Breathtaking in scope and ambition, rewilding aims to save species by restoring habitats, reviving migration corridors, and brokering peace between people and predators. Traveling with wildlife biologists and conservationists, Fraser reports on the vast projects that are turning Europe's former Iron Curtain into a greenbelt, creating transfrontier Peace Parks to renew elephant routes throughout Africa, and linking protected areas from the Yukon to Mexico and beyond.

An inspiring story of scientific discovery and grassroots action, Rewilding the World offers hope for a richer, wilder future.

With the dismantling of two dams on Washington state’s Elwha River, the world’s largest dam removal project is almost complete. Now, in one of the most extensive U.S. ecological restorations ever attempted, efforts are underway to revive one of the Pacific Northwest’s great salmon rivers. To read more of my October, 2013 coverage at Yale Environment 360, click on the photo.

For a melodrama of persecuted fugitives to rival Les Misérables, look no farther than the Mexican wolf, the subspecies of gray wolf that once populated the U.S. Southwest. Hunted and trapped by ranchers and federal agencies since the late 1800s, now detained by the same agencies in pens called “wolf jail,” few species in North America have come closer to extinction. Fewer still have suffered through attempted recoveries so plagued by reversals and allegations of mismanagement. [Click on photo to read more at Yale Environment 360]

New England--Join us at the Haston Free Public Library in North Brookfield, Massachusetts on 6 October 2011, 7pm, for an evening of rewilding. Check out a month of free conservation field trips and other events by clicking on this link or visiting the Reviews & Events page on this site.

"The Crucial Role of Predators: A New Perspective on Ecology"
Report at Yale Environment 360

Scientists have recently begun to understand the vital role played by top predators in ecosystems and the profound impacts that occur when those predators are wiped out. Now, researchers are citing new evidence that shows the importance of lions, wolves, sharks, and other creatures at the top of the food chain. [To read on, click on photo at left]

In the past century, populations of wild tigers have plummeted from 100,000 to 3,500. Now the World Bank and conservationists have launched an eleventh-hour effort to save this great predator, focusing on reining in the black market for tiger parts and ending the destruction of tiger habitat.

Starred review in Library Journal: “This truly is an essential read for conservationists, biologists, and anyone interested in the natural world.”

Publishers’ Weekly: “Her story of grassroots activism paired with the scientific is environmentally inspirational.”

Recommended in Vanity Fair’s “Hot Type” column, December 2009.

“Since I spend much of my time trying to head off environmental calamity, this fascinating and lyrical book came as a particularly welcome gift. It shows how scientists and activists are using imagination and research to build a realistic strategy for securing our green and noble heritage for the future. It will help you think big, which is the only way to think about these questions and not go mad!”

—Bill McKibben, author Eaarth: A Survivors Guide

“A riveting journal of the astonishing bio-impoverishment of our planet.”

—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President of Waterkeeper Alliance and author of Crimes Against Nature

“Caroline Fraser’s Rewilding the World is an exciting and wise exploration of a revolution that’s reshaping the conservation movement. She’s gone all over the world to bring us news from the front lines, and her account is one of essential hope: though it’s no guarantee that we can save nature from collapse, she shows that we have a fighting chance. Fraser’s account stirred me.”

—Richard Preston, author of The Wild Trees and The Hot Zone

“Give them room to roam! Caroline Fraser’s smart, passionate manifesto offers hope to the wild world. In an age of overwhelming loss, she shows us how to gain: more bears, more wolves, more biodiversity, more thriving ecosystems, more life. This is an important book about the cutting edge of conservation and how it might save our continent and our selves.”

—Bruce Barcott, author of The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw

“Rewilding is less a conservationist's utopian vision than a roadmap for the way we must learn to live on earth. As Caroline Fraser carefully explains, humans will survive only in a world as wild as the one that created us. If you want to live, read this book.”

—Doug Peacock, author of The Essential Grizzly and Walking It Off

Caroline Fraser's first book, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, was selected as a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book Review Best Book.

She has written widely about animal rights, natural history, and the environment, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The ­New York Review of Books, and Outside magazine, among others. She is a co-editor of the environmental website, iWild.org.